OFFICE MAKEOVER

Well I promised you after the new year that I would show you my latest makeover at the farmhouse. And this room has always been my nemesis. It is the room that seems to always “collect” all the junk and leftovers that I can’t find a spot for. During whimsy months it becomes an overflow of Whimsy and also holds all of my crafting messiness that needs a spot somewhere and inevitablly ends up there. When we renovated we decided to do an arch with an open entry to the office. Looking back I sure wish I would have put a door on it just so I could have the option to close it off to the world when it’s in it’s unsightly state, but that’s not an option. So, instead I needed some major organization and remodel to make it function in the way we wanted it to.

Our office has been through a lot of changes, like I said. It started out when we first bought it, as a den…..

We never changed any of the windows in this process, so you can always go off of them. We did make this room quite a bit smaller to make room for a formal dining room on the other side…

Then we unloaded everything in here and we had a big ole mess…..which I can’t seem to find the picture for at them moment…

We finally turned an old farmhouse table into a desk and made it “look” functional for a bit…

Until the space just wasn’t working for us anymore. I then swapped out desks for something with more storage to hide clutter….added a dresser and some fun and here’s what I came up with…

I painted the wall color a really pale blue. I actually just picked it up from Walmart one night because I was desperate for change. It is a Better Homes and Gardens color called Airy Blue.

After I painted the blue I used an overhead machine to cast up an outline of the world on the walls. The bugger is that I couldn’t move the overhead far enough away to get it as big as I wanted, so I had to free hand a lot of it. With that being said I’m sure A LOT of my proportions are off. Geography was never my thing. But I”m okay with that. I wanted it to be pale in the background so I painted it in my trim color, decorator white.

I got this old plate rack from a lady and after seeing Ann Voskamps home school room where she had low bookshelves for her kids, I decided to add a piece of wood to the front so it would hold the books in place and hang it low enough for the kids to see it at eye level. I love the pops of color it brings into the room and also how easily accessible it is for the kids to use.

I found this cute feather tree at a garage sale last year for $4, and was super excited all summer to pull it out at Christmas time. It fits the playful feel of the office perfectly.

I love pennants hanging from the ceiling as well. It makes the room seem more fun. So I took scraps from all of my christmas pillows and cut them into triangles, hot glued them onto bakers twine, and hung them up using 3M command strips. A free little bit of fun:)

I used my burlap tac board for our Christmas cards this year, and also used a basket to keep all of my wrapping paper together. It looked a bit cuter before Christmas when all of my fun paper was still in there. Slim pickings these days;)

And although I would have loved to see Ry’s beast of a gun safe go….it didn’t. At least not until he finishes off his man cave. So for now I just decorated around it.

I had seen these fun world globes on Land of Nod and thought they were so fun…

and at $29 they really weren’t that bad. But, I remembered I had some light kits I had picked up from IKEA awhile back, and so I thought I’d try to make something similar. I bought 2 sizes of white paper globes off of amazon for I think around $3 and $6. Then I used a large circle paper punch and punched out as many holes as I could from a large map I had. I ended up only having enough holes to do one globe for now, but I hot glued them on, put the light kit in, and ended up with my own globe lantern. Now to just buy an atlas to finish off my other one..

They look pretty fun lit up at night. I also got that awesome wood star from a sweet friend. They got the lathe out of an old barn and I love how it has some old paint still left on it.

My mother-in-law had found this dresser for $3 at a garage sale. I was getting ready to fix it up for Whimsy when I realized ti would be a perfect fit in this little cove in the office. I added new hardware and some numbers and filled it up with all of my crafting stuff. A great fix to remove the clutter!

I still want to add chalkboard plaques under the larger drawers to say whats in there. I got the satin nickel pulls off of eBay for $2 a piece.

I got these jars from Walmart for $5 a piece and I just chalked the front of it to make them personalized.

I’m still working on this wall. I’m not quite happy with it yet. I’m thinking it may get a chalk treatment, or different storage on the shelves. Either way it’s just not quite right yet.

I do love this area though. I bought a big roll of brown building paper from Menards. I like it better than kraft paper because it’s not quite as thick. I then bought matching curtain rods from Walmart as well for around $10/piece, and hung the paper and ribbon on them. It worked great this Christmas to have this as a wrapping station. I’m thinking the kraft paper will work well for notes/homeschool/wrapping/lists/ and all of the above:)

She’s come a long way, and got a lot more practical in the last month. With a few more tweaks I’m hoping this room is as functional as I’d hoped it would be when we remodeled it!

5 Responses to OFFICE MAKEOVER

Such a great job!! It has a whimsical feel to it that would make a very pleasant work space. I’ve read that the color blue also motivates one to complete more work – good choice for an office – maybe I should repaint mine!!

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Hello! I'm Allie. Lover of power tools, Chipotle, all things DIY, and a thrifty budget! But most importantly I am in love with my husband, my four beautiful children, and living a life set apart for the one who created me.